


Nanoseconds

by AmbitiousWitch



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Ignoring THORS to hell and back, Internal Conflict, Not Beta Read, The Time War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 02:23:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17417222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmbitiousWitch/pseuds/AmbitiousWitch
Summary: There are always some things they can't say, some things left out because the nature of their intrincated, ongoing and time altering relationship. Some things that they can’t avoid.





	Nanoseconds

**Author's Note:**

> No beta read, all the mistakes are mine.

She hadn't expected to find this one during this job. Well, she hadn't expected to see him at all, really. Last time she had seen the Doctor, she had left him in the TARDIS by his own after travelling together for a couple of months. They had just lost their parents and River also needed time alone.

But getting into this job taking some relique from the Time Lords wasn't supposed to guide her directly to the eighth incarnation of her husband, or at least, not in this point of his timeline.

She had supposed he was already fighting. Already turned into that broken old man that her sweetie hid in the deep of his mind. But instead of that, she looks straight to this man in ragged clothes trying to get the people out of the falling ship. He looks desperate, he _is_ desperate, he is clinging to the role of rescuer, of the Doctor, with all his remaining strength.

“Come on! Come on! Everyone inside!” he screams while the resting members of the crew enter in the TARDIS.

River has a perception filter, so he is not really paying attention to her, just trying to save the rest. She will soon be gone anyway, the coordinates are already typed in her vortex manipulator.

But her mind goes quickly, nanoseconds while the people escape and the Daleks approach behind them, as in slow motion. She remembers another battle, one where the Doctor was the demon and she remembers that they lost, that she was lost and what came after.

She remembers her Doctor coming to her cell after that night happened in his perspective. She remembers his arms around and the desperate promise that he would find her and her own firm voice forbidding him to do so.

River had taken him then, to the place where Melody Pond had been raised as a child and she had dared him. She had told him to dare to change her life after everything was already done. They had yelled at each other and in part, she had always known that her life would never be normal, but Melody Pond having a normal life and a loving family, Melody Pond being human… Would never be _her._

And she was more than tired of losing herself.

She hated the right people: Kovarian, the Silence, for everything they did and she made him promise that no matter how much her parents would beg, he wouldn't come for her.

Because River Song was who she was, her life, her suffering, her scars were only for her. She had beaten them, overcome them, and not even Kovarian could spoil that.

Now she is looking at this versión of her husband that had started naive and idealistic. Probably the life he had ever come close to have something such simple as innocence, something she had never had the luxury to have.

After Lake Silencio, she had thought herself immune the to the temptation of changing something. The pain, the heartbreak, the disappointment and the extreme happiness all at one had apparently cured of her of that. But now she finds herself thinking and wishing and counting.

_Nanoseconds._

She can just snatch him from the TARDIS door and take him far far away. From the war, from the pain, she can delete his memory and leave him somewhere safe. Save him from something as pointless and she knows a war is.

But she can't.

She knows she can't. She would be rewriting them, probably herself, maybe not even her status of fixed point could save her this time.

Is this how he felt when she had taken him to Florida?

River thinks who her Doctor would be without the Time War. She has met incarnations previous to that and she knows he is still him. She thinks who he would be, just as she had thought who she would be so many times. Melody Pond, the normal, human girl? Melody Williams, the geography teacher? Would they have named her Melody at all? Maybe. Maybe not.

She can't, but oh, the temptation is there, more than ever and she can't understand why, why now?

She glances at him one last time and it seems as he noticed her. For one moment his big blue eyes seemed to find hers and River presses the bottom zapping away. Thinking about what's next: the warrior that had no hope, the tired man tried to find it again, the pretty boy with the big brown eyes, always trying to be a hero; and her own bow tie wearing soldier, who tries to keep at bay the ice that grows around his heart.

River opens her eyes and she is in their room in Baker Street. The last message she had got from the Doctor said she had met him here, in winter 2013; she hears the door open downstairs.

“Sweetie?” she calls going downstairs and the Doctor is closing his umbrella, soaking and holding a package with his free arm.

“You’re here, eh?” he smiles while taking off his coat. The smile barely reaches his eyes, but it's better than the last time. River goes to him and hugs him from behind, not caring about the wet shirt, she presses her lips on his back. “When are you, darling?”

“Past way Manhattan,” the name still feels bitter in her tongue. “I had to take a job for an excavation.”

“About a battleship?”

“Yes,” of course, she had got that other job after that, but she doesn't see any reason to tell him about it.

“Then, I last saw you were two weeks ago,” he sighs and turns around, coupling her face and kissing her lips. “Welcome home, honey.”

“You have been here all this time?” he presses his lips together and nods, River frowns. “Doctor, I told you to not be alone.”

“I have been quite busy working in a project, dear. I didn't notice the pass of time.”

Now, that's a lie, she knows it, but being alone in the old house it's not better than travelling without a companion. Well, maybe it is, she can't say that her past last weeks have been perfectly healthy behaviour. But she doesn't want to fight now.

“What's in the bag?” she asks instead.

“This? Oh, it's just some envelope paper, really. The Old Girl is doing some remodelling, so I decided to buy it in the old way.”

“It's a present?” River smiles at him.

“It’s a surprise,” he says and tries to give her the most convincing smile he can fake. “We go out tonight, I think you should change as I finish with this. The TARDIS must be done by now.”

“Where are we going?” River walked away from him to the TARDIS parked in the living room, she smiled, caressing the door. “Hello, Old Girl.”

“Darillium,” River listens him say while he disappears upstairs. She backs off of the TARDIS and follows him to their room.

“Darillium?” she asks and he husband nods, distracted. “You always cancel at the last moment every time you say you will take me there.”

“No, this time it's for real, I know how much you want to see them,” he says, avoiding her eyes while passing a towel through his hair.

“I can't stay long this time, you know I have work.”

“You have a vortex manipulator, dear, I am sure that you _can't_ be late…”

“You know what I mean, Doctor,” she has work to do in the university and it is also that expedition with the Lux Corporation that she has been considering to take…

“I know, I know,” the Doctor says passing a hand through his face. “But it's just one night, River. Just one night.”

There is something in his voice that she can't quite place. She doesn't know if it's bitterness or just… Sadness, but it's something, something that he probably won't share with her or can't. She won't say about her little encounter with his previous self for the same reason. River could tell him, of course, and maybe ask him again if he would change anything even when she doesn't want to, but she doesn't, she knows the promises that they have made to each other and it's too late to turn back now.

There are always some things they can't say, some things left out because the nature of their intrincated, ongoing and time altering relationship. Some things that they can’t avoid.

And some things that could take just nanoseconds to change.

**Author's Note:**

> Okaaaaay, I just had insomnia last night after too much listening Big Finish. I need to write the next chapter of my long one, so I basically wrote this to get the idea out of my head.
> 
> This idea was born after listening _Rulers of the Universe_ were River seemed to be quite protective of the Eighth Doctor because she knew quite deal of shitty his life would turn before and after the Time War. And I kind of pictured her having one of these moments of "I could change this" at least one more time in her life. Since this trope seems more attributed to the Doctor in fanfiction. With River is always Kovarian and with the Doctor, I am pretty sure that it would be the Time War (yes, I know he saved Gallifrey but that was the last day of it).
> 
> Thanks for reading and comments are appreciated.


End file.
